“Good morning! Happy birthday, happy birthday church, happy birthday church!
“This is the birthday of the Christian church. Today, the day of the Pentecost, this day and not before this day could the followers of Jesus be called Christians
“Easter is the holiest day of the year right? I know we think it’s Christmas but it’s not. It is Easter. The second holiest day of the year is today.
“Pentecost is the last day of the great 50 days of Easter, then Christmas is after that. (Maybe it’s third holiest at least that’s what the church has been teaching for more than 2,000 years )
“Today is a day of celebrating the ongoing presence of God in the community who follow Jesus.
“We celebrate birthdays by putting candles on a cake. Now on this day to Mark the birth of the church. God’s Holy Spirit was like a flame on the top of the heads of each of the 12 of Jesus’s closest followers, a tongue of fire, a flame like candles above their head.
“Now that’s weird isn’t it ? A flame on somebody’s head. It didn’t burn. it was above their head. But when you think of fire what comes to your mind about fire ? It gives light, warmth and it burns. It destroys but when fire destroys life trees and we know that then new growth comes up behind the old growth that has died.
“So why did God decide to come as a flame of fire in the Holy Spirit because God wants us to be fired up, to have energy, to be excited in our soul in our heart in our mind to have enthusiasm about Jesus.
“Now that word “enthusiasm” is a Greek word from “Theos” which means god. So the word enthusiasm whenever you use it you’re saying to be excited in, or about, or with God to be consumed as it were by God. That’s what the word enthusiasm actually means – to be excited by God now on this day of the Pentecost.
“Remember that the disciples were locked in a room probably the upper room where they had the Last Supper and they were terrified they were afraid because they thought the people would come after them next to execute them for being followers of Jesus. They were hiding out, afraid, scared, being quiet but Pentecost came like a fire getting them ready to go out again. So Pentecost is about getting ready to go out and start again to be born again as some Christians put it. We go out getting started with God and trusting and speaking of God with joy, assurance, trust but above all love.
“We don’t hear a lot of love these days do we ? We don’t hear a lot of hope. What we hear is anger in our society and I am sick of it so the tongues of flame appeared and they went out speaking with joy and love and happiness and what happened next as they went out there everybody, everybody who heard them heard as if they were speaking their own language.
“Remember the last ones, the Arabs. Remember not all Arabs are Muslim. There are Arab Christians throughout the world and they would tell you they were the original Christians because Jesus was a Palestinian Jew. They went out speaking and everybody heard them in their own language, their own native tongue so from the tongues of flame on their heads to talking with their tongues in different languages. There was a miracle as they spoke and gave praise to God it was a miracle. It was a sign that following Jesus is not just for those who knew him but for everyone in the world for all time for you and me today.
“Now, for them to go out from hiding was a pretty courageous thing for them to do wouldn’t you say and risky ? They were afraid that they would be charged by being these bold leaders speaking about Jesus who was crucified by the Roman government for sedition acting against the government and here we are 2,000 years plus later celebrating the birth of the Christian faith the birth of the church in and for the world.
“So I have a question for all of you. Are you feeling bold today ? Are you feeling courageous today ? To be changed by God and the Holy Spirit yes! All right then be ready to be excited so excited by the Holy Spirit that that your life and your faith that’s in you is renewed this day.
“Faith is more than words and feelings. Faith is something deep in your soul in the very pit of your soul so if you are ready to be bold today in faith you got to be ready for that fire to come to destroy that which is old and lift up what is new.
“Now, as Episcopalians, I would not be surprised if some of you’d rather say uh well, um no not so much, just a little bit. I just want a little bit of the Holy Spirit because we are the Frozen chosen, right? Indeed, we’re like those dry bones that we heard about in Ezekiel. We refrain from the chaotic. We want things to be ordered and sedate in our worship but you see the Holy Spirit is uncontrollable.
“You cannot control God. I’m sorry, the Holy Spirit goes where it wills like the wind and you cannot pretend that you have it and you can’t ask for just a limited little amount. Like the apostles on Pentecost today, we are called to new life today to speak differently with our tongues to have our ears open to hear new words, for eyes to behold something beyond just what we see beyond ourselves, to have our hearts enlarged and expanded, to embrace God, to have our minds filled with wonder and love and praise the name of our Him,
“In other words not the frozen dry bones. It means today we have to reach deep within ourselves and see ourselves and see others as children of God and not worry about what is familiar or comfortable but rather look out for what is different and new.
“So, if you truly do want to receive the Holy Spirit, that means you’re going to be an agent of God and to be an agent of God means this you must break down social and class distinctions of race age national origin and sexuality. It means you cannot be blinded in your loyalty at all to anything but God. You must not have blind loyalty to political parties or leaders. It means that you must speak and receive the whole truth the whole truth that sometimes comes without spin or agenda and makes you uncomfortable. That’s truth! Not how you want it to be but how it is, and if you’re going to be an angel of God you got to respect those who are most different from you now.
“Are you sure you want to say yes to receiving God’s spirit deep within you because then you got to be willing to put your old self aside, to put some of your old fears aside, willing to have the walls inside of you break down, be willing to break gown the walls that you have between you and another person ?
“If you’re going to say “yes” to the Holy Spirit means you got to be willing to embrace and engage of possibilities of God might be taking you places you do not want to go. Do you think I wanted to be a bishop all my life ? Do you ? No, but God told me to so I am here saying yes to the Holy Spirit means being willing to be consumed by faith. In other words it’s not good enough to have faith. You got to let Faith have you, you have to be willing to be enthusiastic excited by God.
“Are you willing to still say yes to all that ? Not all of you said yes! So today is the day to be bold and be born again today is a new birthday for you and for me, a birthday a fire of the Holy Spirit to celebrate, to dance and to receive God’s spirit, to invite and embrace the holy to burn within us and God brings us this birthday gift of the Holy Spirit, a spirit that we can all drink from, to revel in and be empowered by whether a person who comes here is 50 years is as a member of this church or they’ve only been here 15 minutes. We are all called to leadership in the church. We’re called by that fire of the Holy Spirit to look deep inside ourselves and see God by that fire of the Holy Spirit, to look deep inside others and find God.
“Maybe you’ve heard of Annie Dillard? She’s a renowned Southern novelist and in her book “Holy The Firm” she wrote about worshiping God .She wrote this quote “It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.
For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.”
“Are we making too many assumptions about our own propriety or about God as baptized persons of all ages? We should always approach our worship with a sense of expectation, awe, and wonder. She said when we come to worship, we should also be prepared to meet God as well as be the person through whom God as well as be the person through whom others might meet God in such a way that lives are changed. Her words are vivid and bold as the words of the baptismal vows that we were will all soon rehearse again together.
“We will be renewed in them all of us who are gathered in this right of confirmation and reception so as you renew these vows. Be ready be open to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will enable you to be the person through whom God is meeting other people. Through you others will meet God if you live these baptismal vows so that their lives will be changed and this world will be changed. It is time for us to put anger and resentment and Prejudice behind us and go forward with truth and love and joy. The other person is not your enemy usually. The enemy resides within and and that’s what the Holy Spirit wants to burn out so that new life in God can come in. It’s not about us and them. It’s about God.
“So I want to ask you one more time. Are you looking forward to being bold in your life in faith now ? If you don’t and again, I know there are Episcopalians here if you’d rather be comfortable sitting in a pew, move out of the way, please. You can be frozen dry bones but don’t get in the way of us who want to be renewed because those of us who want to be bold to burn in and with God’s love and mercy and power to burn with the truth the whole truth we’re going to stand up in a minute and begin again.
“We’re being born again today in our vows of baptism so get out of our way because we’re going to renew ourselves, renew ourselves with the fire of the Holy Spirit and know who we are but more importantly whose we are God’s. As Bishop Desmond Tutu a good friend of mine said many times. “You are a child of God so act like it!” Happy birthday Church Alleluia Christ is risen!
“God working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, glory to God from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen